Pros
Benefits are amazing. The A has those locked down. Flexible sick time.
Cons
I have worked at APCC (Animal Poison Control) for 2 years. I make $21.97, despite every review being FME or EE for the entire duration of my employment. The A pays staff in geographic zones based on COL. New hires with the same geographical zone as I START at $21.00. (This review will not be anonymous because I'm fairly certain that I am paid the least.) In what reality did they think employees would be okay with someone starting less than $1 hr than you make after 2 years? In July, we were all given raises. Every other staff member I talked to got a 25% raise. I was given a 17.5% raise, despite my "stats" being above average. If you are being promised major holidays off when you finally have seniority at the company, they're lying. There were at least 10 people I had significant seniority over who got Christmas off this year, while I was scheduled for my 2nd year in a row. When I asked management why I was working two years in a row, one said that it was because I had more experience and they wanted more experienced staff to work holidays. So my experience gained me another holiday to miss with my children, but not a 25% pay raise like my colleagues. Another manager told me that because I had voluntarily worked every holiday in 2022, scheduling assumed I'd want to work Christmas as well, and that they often picked people willing to work all the other holidays (despite a preference sheet saying my first choice was to have Xmas off). There is a staff member who has worked 4 Christmases in a row; meanwhile, another staff member has had the last 6 Christmases off. I was also advised that instead of being upset I was working Christmas, I could perhaps schedule Christmas another day for my children, and I could maybe have it off in 2023, but there were no guarantees. The APCC's new directors implemented changes to our statistics (how many calls we take per hour, how long each call lasts, how many are paid vs non paid). First, if we don't successfully persuade an owner to go through a case with us, it counts against our "how many cases are paid" stats. We aren't salesmen. It's not my job to sell our services and I shouldn't be punished if I can't convince an owner not to pay for the necessary care for their pet. Second, it counts against you if you don't have any calls to take. If there are no calls waiting, that time you spend waiting without taking a call negatively affects your stats. Third, 90% of staff can't meet the new expectations, including managers. We were offered a bonus if we met some really unreasonable expectations, and only one person has managed to obtain it so far. As soon as she did, the statistics changed again (see 2nd point in this paragraph). The bonus is ableist, as well. There are staff with medical conditions or disabilities that make it so they can't work as fast as other people, so if you have a hearing disability, for example, you're probably never going to be fast enough to take as many calls per hour as they want because you're working more slowly. Only people without disabilities are technically in the running for this monthly bonus. Respect for technicians is almost a 0. All of my colleagues in clinics or working elsewhere in this field were given massages, catered lunches, gifts, and true appreciation during Technician Week. We were given a $6 "treat" (that we had to pay for OOP and then submit for reimbursement) and a couple of word searches we didn't have time to complete during working hours because of the constant push of "answer more calls per hour!". They thought this was a boost from the $5 "treat" we were able to reimburse last year. Meanwhile, the salaries of many of the higher ups are public, and our CEO makes almost $1 million a year. New directors of the APCC are clueless and out of touch with what actually goes on answering 20+ phone calls per day via the general public. On top of forcing ever-changing stats down our throats and reminding us we need more paid cases, they will happily and without question give money back to owners while in the same breath telling us how valuable our specialty service is. Mandatory overnights are required as well, even though most people aren't told this in training or upon hire. Even if you work a day shift, at least every couple of months, you'll be put on a fully overnight shift (8p-3a, for example) and then if you're lucky, you'll get 2 days off to recover before switching back to your regular shift times. Sometimes, you'll be scheduled this overnight on a Thursday, you'll have Friday "off" (even though you'll be sleeping all day), and then you go right back to work Saturday. They do this to fill their lack of staffing on overnights and for no other reasons. It's not our job to make up for their lack of staffing. Do you want to be off on time? Probably won't happen. We can have literally 1 minute left in our shift, and if a call comes through, you have to answer it, most likely putting you at least 15-20 minutes late getting off. Okay in some cases, but if you have to pick kids up from school, you're going to be late. 1 minute to lunch? You'll have to take a call if it comes through, and if you 15 minutes into your lunch, you have to ask your manager if you can even take your full hour. Depending on whether you have a nice manager or the more tyrannical, power hungry manager (there's only 1), you may only get part of your lunch. oh! And one of the new directors insists you come BACK after 30 minutes to check the phone Q, and if there are calls waiting, kiss the rest of your lunch goodbye. Did I mention the DVM directors that consistently call out of weekends and holidays, pretend to have IT issues, or are constantly on "work" time not at their computer? Confirmed by several DVMs who don't have this privilege. If you want to apply for another position, your manager will tell you it looks like you hate your current job, and it won't look good on you as an employee, so there's really no room for growth. It's also important to note their "diversity" is a joke. The majority of the directors and team leaders are white. The one black person we had in upper leadership is now gone, surely to be replaced by another white woman. If you don't mind being another faceless, underpaid cog in the corporate wheel, you'll have some good health benefits here, flexible PTO, and basically unlimited overtime. But if you want any sort of equality in pay, accountability for directors/managers, or to be valued in any sense, this isn't the place to work. WAGE SHARE WAGE SHARE WAGE SHARE.
